As media and news organizations continue to brace against the rising tides of economic challenges, they’re struggling to invest in groundbreaking journalism and support for journalists.
With the media landscape already reflecting a stark lack of diverse representation both in stories and behind them, these challenges exacerbate the issue of how we tell the stories that matter. But what does this mean for us at a larger level?
Diversity in the media industry is about much more than warm and fuzzies. The lack of representation in newsrooms and media leadership has led to significant blind spots that help shape negative perceptions as a whole.
For example, journalists who come from privileged backgrounds, are more likely to have biases covering topics like labor disputes, environmental justice, or income inequality, all of which disproportionately impact communities of color more significantly. When UPS delivery drivers were on the verge of strike due to a clear labor dispute, the coverage that emphasized the total economic cost of a strike in effect obscured that thousands of middle-class workers, many of whom come from historically excluded backgrounds, were pushing for a better outcome for themselves and their families.
The mainstream media, which has faced mass consolidation — 90% of media was owned by six companies as of 2012 — ultimately answer to their parent companies and may have biases that reflect what is likely to benefit their corporate partners. And those partners themselves may not reflect the diversity of our broader population, which further drives challenges on what story matters and what doesn’t.
It also means that when there is a news story involving Black, Latine, Asian, or other historically excluded communities, the story will be written for majority-white audiences rather than for all of us. Meanwhile, one additional challenge is that those who represent their company’s newsroom diversity are often forced into race, equity, or diversity coverage.
What we’re losing
With newspapers closing across the country, cities and counties are losing independent views over government or business activity. A study by UNC in 2020 found that local newspapers are closing at an alarming rate.
The study estimated that in the early 1990s, the US had 24,000 local daily newspapers. That number shrank to 9,000 by 2004 and fell by another 2,100 over the next 15 years, a reduction of twenty-five percent. The closure of news outlets also leads to political polarization, a less informed populace, and less connected communities.
Good local reporting when done through the right intersectional lens can be a lifesaver, like when it identifies code violations in buildings, food violations in restaurant groups, or government corruption. It can also save a lot of money for taxpayers.
At this stage, the situation is getting worse, as efforts to track the state of diversity in media are losing steam due to missing data and low participation.
The News Leaders Association diversity survey, which is meant to bring accountability to the industry, hit a low point for participation in 2018, with293 organizations reporting. It increassed to over 400 in 2019 only to fall back down, to 303 the following year. And the survey faced a gap in publishing, up until late 2022.
Notably, the 2022 survey included a note of discouragement from the survey’s lead researcher. “What we see with an inability to collect robust data and to present accurate and robust data about the composition of the news industry is that those individuals and groups do not want to be accountable to the public,” said Northeastern University associate professor Meredith Clark.
The latest data from the Pew Research Center paints a bleak picture. Most fields have single-digit representation in Black, Hispanic, and Asian journalists, with some of the figures being alarmingly low, such as Black representation in environment & energy journalism or Asian representation in sports journalism.
There is no question that varying backgrounds in the room will help paint a more representative picture of the stories we tell, which in turn help to shape the perception of our communities. However, this is just the first step. The long term measure of success will be based on continued investment in this representation over time.
